While the 2012 Olympics have been widely applauded as a massive success for London and Team GB, the same cannot be said for the Team UAE. As the country’s 30 competitors returned from London empty-handed, the UAE’s only ever gold medal winner, HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Hasher Al Maktoum,called on the government to reform its approach to sportfrom its current “embarrassing” level.

Sheikh Ahmed, who won a gold medal for double-trap shooting in the 2004 Olympics, this year coached Team GB’s Peter Wilson to gold in the same sport. “Looking for an Olympic champion [in the UAE] is far harder than finding a diamond,” he said last week as he urged the government to encourage more children to take up sport.

And the UAE is not a country to hang around. Just two days later, the government announced a new project called “The Olympic… Read more

Even if you turned away your eyes for a second, you could tell by the Canadian cheers and stomping of feet exactly when GB’s women curling team had thrown a poor stone or missed the sweet spot yesterday. Playing against the host country clearly means normal sporting etiquette of not rejoicing in the opposing team’s mistakes – or while they are about to throw – is quickly abandoned. “It’s kind of embarrassed cheering,” one Canadian spectator remarked to me, as Team GB were knocked out of the Olympics in a tight 5-6 game. “This is the Olympics, so the rules don’t apply. Many people here aren’t curlers; they just want to see an Olympic event.” If it was distracting for us in the stands, I couldn’t imagine the din in our team’s heads which at one point stared at the sea of red and white until they quietened down. One fan… Read more

Oh, to be able to tune into the BBC right now. Tried to see all of Amy (aka “Skeleton Amy“) Williams’s medal ceremony on Canadian television, and it showed just a glimpse – and that’s only because Canada’s Jon Montgomery, her male equivalent, was up next on the podium. Team GB paraded out at the opening ceremony and the coverage cut to commercials. Even the curling and the much-anticipated Canada versus GB game on Saturday was not front and centre (perhaps because people are less interested in the sport on the west coast with temperate winter days not being long enough to spend inside a rink for three or so hours per game). So if some in the UK are bemoaning Balding and the BBC’s coverage, perhaps Auntie needs to secure some cheeky rights for expat-viewing-only whenever it broadcasts an Olympics? As long as we see the Best of… Read more

Ever since IOC president Jacques Rogge announced in 2003 thatVancouver had been awarded the Games, I knew I wanted to experience as many of the winter sports as possible. Where else would I get the chance to be living in an Olympic city (this, obviously, was before London, which I call my co-home, landed 2012)? So, when a year ago residents were given the chance to apply for tickets which would then be allotted via a lottery, I slapped it all on my card: opening and closing ceremony, aerials, moguls, curling (my house is close to the rink after all) et al for a total ker-ching of $6,000. We all duly rang our credit company (be warned, London – you’ll need to own a Visa as it’s the only card accepted for everything at these and Britain’s Olympics) to make sure it would approve the payment if you won some… Read more

My first thoughts, I have to confess, about having people connected with Team GB curlers staying at our home in Vancouver were obvious and puerile. Should we leave the broom out for them, would they line up their eggs perfectly in the frying pan as they do in the “house” (the round target where the rocks or stones win their points), and who among the team does the sweeping at home? I’m not a curler myself: the closest I have been to playing on ice – or the sheet as its known in sporting parlance – was a press trip to curl with Canada’s bronze-medal-winning women’s team in 2002 shortly after Rhona Martin threw her “stone of destiny” to land gold for Britain at Salt Lake City (I kept my accent quiet). And none of my Canadian friends on the temperate west Coast is as fanatical about the sport as… Read more